Ask Anything on Sidechat | How many people do you think were wrongly accused of trying to poison royalty/nobility all because the poison taste tester had an unknown food allergy? It’s gotta be at least a few wrongful executions right?

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Ask Anything 23h

How many people do you think were wrongly accused of trying to poison royalty/nobility all because the poison taste tester had an unknown food allergy? It’s gotta be at least a few wrongful executions right?

106

Anonymous 21h

Little out of my pay grade but your spitting

Anonymous 20h

This is actually a pretty cool question, but I think by the time of meal testers/wine tasters, ~medieval period~ people would know the symptoms of an allergic reaction, swelling, hives, closure of the throat rather than most poisons causing foaming from the mouth. If I had to ballpark maybe under 20 false executions although that’s a rough guess rather than a factual statement.

Anonymous 21h

holy shit i love this

Anonymous 17h

That’s a great question! Allergies themselves weren’t even well understood, and the first non-ambiguous descriptions and documented fatalities didn’t spring up until the early 1900s or so— and has been becoming much more common since the past few hundred years. While not an impossibility, the chances don’t seem to be all that high for it to have happened. The role of “food tester” was usually just in relation to the crown’s health in general…

Anonymous 13h

now THAT is what this community is for

Anonymous

#3 18h

Not all poisons cause foaming.

Anonymous

#4 18h

Excellent point! I was waiting for someone to call that out, foaming of the mouth is very much from fiction. Nightshade and hemlock were mostly used which had a variety of symptoms yet all of those symptoms differed from an allergic reaction.

Anonymous

#5 17h

And it’s unlikely a fast-acting poison would be used for food when slower-acting poisons were well known across multiple cultures. The food testers were also often the ones preparing the food, and it was kind of a means of going down with the ship you steered into a rock if something happened, and this was an extra layer of security against poisoning.

Anonymous

#5 17h

Obviously, if a tester was fine and the king was clearly being poisoned, they’re clearly suspect #1. If both got sick, showing similar symptoms, then it was legal proof someone managed to poison it. Arsenic was often a “good” poison to go with. Slow enough to get away with it and effectively undetectable.

Anonymous

#3 1h

What are you? AI?